Tom Ford is famously ambitious. Now 52, he's already turned two iconic fashion houses around - Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent - directed an Oscar-nominated film (A Single Man) and founded his own eponymous brand. It makes you a little tired even reading about it.

"It has damaged - no, damaged is the wrong word. It has minimized my ambition a little bit, my ambition in business, my ambition in having a beautiful house. It has become the most important thing in my life," he adds. "Everything else has had to recede, including my appearance. I don't care about it. I care about being successful. I just don't care about any of it as much. You can't.

Not caring about his appearance so much has seen him abandon his not-so-subtle love of Botox.

"I've decided to age. Since we've had Jack I haven't had a Botox injection or a filler. I haven't had time."

But while he may be willing to leave the artifice behind with his own appearance, he doesn't hold the same view when it comes to fashion imagery.

"But why wouldn't people expect pictures to be altered? [Fashion advertising] is not about the models, it's about the image. She's no longer a person; she's an image," he says.